The XBOX One

Those are definitely games, all right. In a way, I have to recognize the dilemma MS finds itself in - if it drops a decent game in here, there will probably be people griping about not putting it on Game Pass. Still, we do seem to have reached the point where Games with Gold is pretty much superfluous. Though I must admit, I do like to get the occasional OG Xbox game.

Well, at least Costume Quest is really great. But, I own it already, of course. I’ve never heard of the others.

I know our reactions are really subjective, but this has been the best slate of games on Gold in many months. Costume Quest is great if a bit twee (Halloween fun for the family), I have heard really good things about Slayaway Camp (horror puzzle game), and while I don’t know a lot about Maid of Sker the Steam reviews seem glowing and the trailer really held my attention (looks like creatures may be blind and react to sound?).

Perhaps not a great pull for everyone, but this really does seem like a stronger month and is quite thematic.

I’ll give it points for that, but I have a hard time with calling it ‘strong.’ But I’ve never even heard of Maid of Sker, so maybe it’s a decent game.

Cool, Slayaway was on my Steam wishlist.

There’s a fun, free “Friday the 13th Killer Puzzle” they made based on hte game.

I’ll also play some Sphinx.

Ooh, Sphinx! Have that for the Gamecube from way back but never finished it; it was an underrated Zelda-like game, glad they brought it back. Been meaning to pick it up for Switch, didn’t know it was out for Xbox as well. First time in a while I’ve been really excited about a GwG title.

I think Costume Quest was already a freebie a while back. Unless I’m thinking of the sequel; I know I have one of those in my library and didn’t buy it (and haven’t played it yet).

Haven’t heard of the other two titles.

Doh, I thought Sphinx was the Switch enhanced port and was out on Xbox One, but looking at that again it appears to be the original release for the Xbox. Still, should have resolution boost as other Xbox releases and I’m sure will run much better (original was prone to some dips in frame rate).

Yup, I’ve got that from GWG. Don’t think the first has been on there yet.

I’m starting to think the goal is to make us not miss it when it goes. 2 already owned, 1 never heard of it, and 1 played it on Gamecube.

It was indeed.

Correction - CQ1 has been free in non-NA regions.

Today there’s also Ikaruga (Spanish) & The Maw (Japan) which can be added without changing your region. I think these are just rentals though, uses the new store.

The XAA program requires you to essentially sign up for an external line of credit through Capital One (I think). Can children even do that? I know in my country you need to be legally an adult, unless you have an adult co-signer.

I’ve also never been forced to watch an ad to browse the store on my Xbox. Were you trying to get to it through one of those little ad boxes on the main console screen or something?

I think everyone expected there to be some kind of credit requirement. And, no, kids can’t get credit. But if a kid wants to shunt their lawn mowing money into an Xbox for $25 a month, they just have to use their parent as the middleman.

One more GWG - Trine 4 (South Korea)
Can be added on the site without changing your region.

Great month now IMO.

I’m trying to use an external SSD with the Xbox One as a game storage drive. A while back, I thought I tried plugging it into the Xbox One and was given the option to either use it as a Media drive or reformat it as an Xbox One game drive and I said “No”.

Now I’d like to say “Yes”, but I can’t get the option to come up. I’ve even tried reformatting the drive and still can’t get the option to come up. It now recognizes it as an empty Media drive, but if I click on it, I get the option to “View Contents” or “Set as Capture Location” but no option to reformat it.

Any thoughts? I did a “Fast Reformat” on the PC. I can try a full reformat if y’all think that will help, but I’m a bit concerned with and SSD that will add to SSD “lifetime usage” and don’t want to try that unless it will likely make a difference.

The Xbox probably flagged something about the drive so it won’t ask you again. Rather than just reformatting you’ll probably need to delete the partition and re-create it. Disk Utility on a Mac will work or on Windows win + r and enter diskmgmt.msc <enter>. From there delete the partition(s) on the drive.

Thanks @Mellified I previously tried deleting the partition in Window’s Disk Management as I thought maybe not having a partition at all would force the Xbox to format. Instead the Xbox didn’t recognize the disk at all. When I put the partition back in, it went back to just recognizing it as a Media disk.

Do you think it might make a difference if I made a slightly smaller partition. Or maybe I should try the full reformat?

Full re-format isn’t going to matter.

Try formatting a new, smaller partition as FAT32 instead of NTFS and see if that helps.

Finally, try connecting the drive to the Xbox. Then do an Xbox restart. For some reason I’ve had that trigger the “What do you want to do with this disk?” message.

GWG time:

  • Aragami
  • Swimsanity
  • Lego Indiana Jones (360)
  • Full Spectrum Warrior (Xbox #1)

I’ve played the lego & ninja games, they were fun.

Never heard of Aragami or Swimsanity.

Here’s a trailer for Aragami:

And Swimsanity:

I’m underwhelmed.

I’ve never heard of those two games either, but they look pretty good to me.